Registration Period for DV-2026 (US Green Card Lottery) Now Open

The Registration period for US Green Card lottery (officially known as Diversity Visa) for fiscal year 2026 is now open. Registration for DV-2016 opened on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at 12pm EDT and will run for one month until Tuesday, November 5, 2024 at 12pm EST.

The program, run by the US State Department, makes available on a lottery basis up to 55,000 green cards to nationalities of countries with historic low rates of immigration to the United States.

For DV-2026, native of the following countries are ineligible to participate in the program because more than 50,000 of their natives migrated to the US in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, The People’s Republic of China (including mainland and Hong Kong born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea (South Korea), Venezuela, and Vietnam. Natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.

Kenyans are among nationalities qualified to participate in the program.

To participate in the lottery, the entrant must be from an eligible country (countries that have more than 50,000 of their citizens immigrate to the US over the previous five years are excluded from participating in the program). The entrant must also have either at least a high school education or two years work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform.

The following information is needed in the registration portal: Name, gender, birth date, city and country of birth, entrant photograph(s), mailing address, country of residence, phone number, email address, highest level of education, and current marital status, name of your spouse, and your children..

The US State Department states that submission entries are completely FREE and are only accepted online at https://dvprogram.state.gov. No paper entries are accepted. Additionally, the Department encourages entrants to submit their entries themselves without a “visa consultant” or “visa agent” to avoid scams. Those who submit inaccurate or duplicate entries will be disqualified.

The Department states that entrants should list their spouse on the registration form, even if they are separated from them. Those who are legally separated do not need to list their spouse. Failure to list a spouse you are not legally separated from, or listing someone you are not married to as a spouse will make you ineligible for a permanent resident visa, says the State Department.